People queue to cast their vote at a polling centre in the village of Jaula in Muzaffarnagar District on April 10, 2014, in the third stage of voting for national elections in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh
Millions of Indians are voting today across 11 states and three Union Territories in one of the biggest phases of the national election to pick a new government at the Centre.
Polling is taking place in 91 of the country's 543 Lok Sabha constituencies. The nine-phase election battle will end on May 12 and the votes will be counted on May 16.
Top 10 facts about today's polling
The Congress holds 45 of the 91 seats voting today. All seven seats in Delhi are voting, apart from 10 in UP, six in Bihar, 10 each in Haryana, Odisha and Maharashtra, all 20 in Kerala, four in Jharkhand, nine in Madhya Pradesh and a seat each in Chhattisgarh, Chandigarh, Andaman and Nicobar Island, Lakshwadeep and Jammu and Kashmir. (India Votes 2014: full coverage)
In Bihar, two paramilitary jawans were killed and four others injured in a landmine blast between Jamui, where voting is being held in the third phase of Lok Sabha election, and Munger. (2 CRPF jawans killed in suspected Naxal attack on polling day Bihar)
In Uttar Pradesh, the riot-affect Muzaffarnagar district is voting under double the security compared to previous polls. Over 10,000 paramilitary personnel have been posted and voters have been given "confidence slips" with emergency phone numbers to dial in case of trouble. Officials say some 42,000 people in the district have been warned and 4,000 of them have been ordered to stay home except when they go to vote.
Heavy security is also visible at Chhattisgarh's Bastar constituency, which is one of India's worst Maoist insurgency-hit regions. Almost 80 per cent of the polling stations have been declared most sensitive.
Over 12 million people will cast their vote in Delhi which will witness a triangular fight between the BJP, Congress, and Arvind Kejriwal's Aam Aadmi Party or AAP.
Today's contest features several top leaders including union ministers Kamal Nath, Kapil Sibal and Ajit Singh, former BJP president Nitin Gadkari and retired Army chief General VK Singh.
AAP, which is debuting in the national polls, also has prominent leaders in today's battle - Yogendra Yadav, Ashutosh and Shazia Ilmi. The party is seen to have lost some of its popularity after its 49-day stint at power in Delhi, but it is still confident of winning big with its strident anti-graft agenda.
Opinion polls predict that Indians will punish the incumbent Congress government at the Centre for an economic slowdown, skyrocketing prices and a string of corruption scams in its 10-year rule.
The BJP, led by its prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi, is widely tipped to win this election. The party perceives a wave in favour of Mr Modi, who is seen by his critics as a divisive figure who didn't do enough to check the 2002 riots on his watch in Gujarat, the state he has ruled since 2001.
Mr Modi is contesting the election from two seats, Varanasi in Uttar Pradesh, and Vadodara in Gujarat. Rahul Gandhi, who is widely seen as the Congress' prime ministerial face, is contesting from Amethi in UP. All these constituencies will vote later.
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